Features

The Spanish Grand Prix was a bitter-sweet race for the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team. On the one hand Lewis Hamilton returned to form, finishing third and adding to his score in the Formula 1 Drivers' World Championship, but on the other hand, Heikki Kovalainen crashed heavily.Full Story

What with Robert Mugabe defying the wishes of the Zimbabwean people and clutching fast to his country's discredited presidency, not to mention Vladimir Putin's dubious plan to stay in charge of Russia, dictators are much in the news right now. A curse on them all. Full Story

Vijay Mallya says that his mother told him that the first word he ever uttered was not "Mama" or "Papa" like the rest of us. Apparently the bouncing young baby Vijay came up with the word "car". Since his days in nappies, Mallya has been passionate about cars.Full Story

Bernard Rey is the chairman of Renault F1, keeping an eye on the team's progress from his position in the top management of Renault in Paris. Flavio Briatore and the Renault F1 engineers answer to him. So he is a man worth talking to.Full Story

Recent news that has attracted a lot of attention in the motor racing world is that Formula 1™s governing body, the FIA, has declared its intention to introduce dramatic measures to reduce costs within the sport. Full Story

So, after 16 of the best races I can remember in one season, we won't know until Sunday whether it's going to be Hamilton, Alonso or Raikkonen who will wear the crown. For only the ninth time in the 38-year history of the FIA's World Driving Championship, three drivers will be in contention for the title in the final round. Full Story

There can be little doubt that the Fuji circuit, helped along with many millions of Toyota investment, will make a good fist of staging this weekend's 15th round of the world championship out in the countryside overlooked by that venerated snow-draped volcano. Nevertheless, I'm a little uneasy about the change of venue for the Japanese GP. After 20 years at Suzuka, the race had found its home at one of the world's greatest tracks, in front of huge, appreciative crowds. Full Story

Depending on which newspaper, magazine or website you read, as far as Formula 1 is concerned, the world came to an end at around 6pm on Thursday, September 13. Unless you have been on the Moon, or in Guantanamo Bay, you™ll know this was, of course, the day when McLaren lost all of its Constructors™ points for 2007 and for good measure, $100m. Full Story

It's great to be going back to Spa this weekend. Because I'm writing this before Thursday's manure/ventilator interface scenario in Paris, I'm assuming the race itself won't be affected. There has been a lot of political argy-bargy in recent years about the Belgian GP, too, so much in fact that when it was agreed that the 2006 race should be suspended, many of the old hands in the press centre suspected it was doomed. Full Story

History hangs heavy over Monza, much as it does over ancient cathedrals or battlefields. Here in the Royal Park, the Kings of Lombardy once hunted deer and wild boar, in between fighting bloody local turf wars. The road circuit was first used for racing in 1922, and it has been the scene of every world championship Italian GP since 1950, except for just one edition held at Imola in 1989. Full Story

My mate PeeWee in Australia has brought my attention to a website on which you can see details of the speed at which our planet is being destroyed. Log on to poodwaddle.com and you'll find lots of whirring dials which track alarming shifts like the increase in the world's population, the depletion of the rain forest, the rate at which we're burning up the oil and other depressing facts. Full Story

I suspect that a fairly high proportion of the fans who read this website are old enough, like me, to have been weaned on the writings of Denis Jenkinson. In the bad old days when motor racing only ever got on to the front pages of the daily press if someone was dead, finding out what had really happened in the last couple of GPs involved buying Motor Sport magazine on the first Wednesday of every month (one shilling and sixpence when I was at school) and devouring whatever 'Jenks' had written. Full Story

Coming away from Magny-Cours on the train last week, I picked up a copy of L'Equipe, the national sporting daily which has somehow survived the looming menace of the worldwide web. Like so many of the publications which we used to enjoy, it's now only a pale shadow of its former robust self, with the F1 coverage lacking any of the informed analysis that you'll find here.Full Story

This weekend's French Grand Prix will be the last to take place at the Magny-Cours circuit, famously located in a remote part of the country to which it has always been difficult to attract spectators in sufficient numbers to pay the increasingly onerous costs of staging a major international event. Full Story

Our sport's annual swing through North America kicks off this weekend in Canada, with the US race to follow just one week later. It's a confoundedly inconvenient pair of races for teams whose cars aren't performing up to scratch and which desperately need the time at home to get them sorted out. But as Mike Doodson relates, these two races provide an opportunity for team bosses, drivers (and even an occasional journalist) to let their hair down in a convivial atmosphere conveniently far from home.Full Story